Hating Warhammer 40k and Space Marine

Thank you once again to my ever-diligent correspondents for pointing out that Resistance 1, back in the dawn of time, did have the non-regenerating health and weapon loadout that Resistance 3 has. Resistance 2 didn't, though, it had the less encouraging health regen limited weapons bollocks, and that's the point, it's gratifying to see trends swing back towards my lonely corner of the playground.

I'm unusually encouraged for gaming right now. I know that even as I speak five hundred generic shooters wait to take their bows upon an already crowded stage, but it's nice to see that so many of them are third instalments. The mainstream industry tends to set up franchises as trilogies, which means they're all getting wrapped up this year and we can look forward to a fresh new round of IP for Christmas 2012 (assuming the world hasn't ended). The three-strikes-and-out rule doesn't apply to older franchises with the name recognition to keep chugging along, obviously, but I'm tentatively certain that they're not going to reboot Gears of War any time soon.

Speaking of which, Space Marine. And also thanks to my other diligent correspondents who have been diligently demanding to know when I'm going to do one of my little yellow five minute spittlefests for the new Warhammer 40K-branded title. In many ways it's fitting that such a legendarily dense period for shooters as Shooter Season 2011 should finally include an official appearance from what has long been the mascot of the current generation shooter, the Space Marine.

I have picked it up and been playing it on and off, largely because I know a couple of people who were working on it back when it was in the hands of THQ Studios Australia. On my professional spectrum it's currently occupying the same general area Red Faction Armageddon occupied for a while; something to review if a slow period comes up, maybe, but currently remaining in a holding pattern while there are still other, more interesting titles coming out. I did try to play a bit more of it after finishing Gears of War 3, but every time I reloaded I found myself unconsciously trying to do the Gears of War timed reload thing, which I decided wasn't a good sign. I'm not so starved for releases that I'm going to risk harping on chunky gits wearing dishwashers twice within the same small expanse of time.

But I'm going to do something I'll probably regret later and review what I've seen of Space Marine now, effectively cutting off any future possibility of me being able to fill an otherwise empty week somewhere down the line. Because I know Warhammer 40K has a lot of fans. Which has never been any kind of mark of quality in my mind, but it apparently enriched the childhoods and young adulthoods of many internet users. Not mine. Good lord no. I was an Advanced Dungeons & Dragons kid, you know, all the fantasy stuff that stimulated the creative mind that was actually about telling interesting stories with positive outcomes. Warhammer 40K always seemed to me like some massively overdesigned elaboration of chess with an incredibly depressing setting. Which existed primarily to remove all the money from your bank account and replace it with plastic figurines. But you could paint them! For days on end! That's what we like! It's all the fun of a coloring book without having to be associated with five-year-olds!

I thought I was a cynical child, that's why I spent so much time in imaginary fantasy worlds where life was fun and adventurous and I didn't have to write essays for school. I couldn't imagine how many levels of cynicism you'd need to be operating on to want to spend your escapist fantasies in a universe that has been completely fucked over by twats. It just seems like such a juvenile concept, like it was pitched by a thirteen-year-old boy while hopping up and down on an examination table waiting for a doctor to grimly fill a large, ominous-looking syringe.